The House Of Smoke

by Sam Christer

‘Can you smell ’er fear?’ asked Baker. ‘Can you?’ His face contorted with a sickening pleasure. ‘I can smell it. The whiff of dyin’ is as pungent as piss. It’s so thick an’ nasty we won’t never be able to scrub it away.’

  Boardman drew my wrist chains high up my back. ‘Suck it in!’ he demanded. ‘Pigs like sniffin’ other pigs’ shit, so go on, you murderin’ swine, get a snout full of ’er stink.’

  He had said too much. I smashed the back of my head into the bridge of his nose.

  He let out a grunt of pain, spat blood, then smiled. ‘Thank you, Lynch. You’ve just given me the excuse I needed.’

  I kicked my heel hard against his shinbone but didn’t catch him hard enough.

  Boardman punched the side of my head. A meaty blow that set my ear ringing. I soaked up the pain and shuffled backwards into him until he toppled over.

  ‘Man down!’ shouted Baker, ‘man down!’ He blew hard on his whistle.

  I turned.

  Boardman got to his feet and started to come for me.

  I kneed him between the legs.

  Air whooshed from his mouth.

  I tried to kick out but the irons snagged my ankle.

  He backed up against the outer wall of the cell, his hands protecting his groin. It was a stupid move – it left his face unguarded.

  I butted him again. Teeth snapped and stuck in my forehead.

  Boardman fell, moaning, to the stone floor and I dropped alongside him. Quickly, I slid my legs either side of his neck.

  He grabbed at my ankles, but it was too late – I had already trapped his head.

  I shifted my hips and started a move that would at its worst render him unconscious and at best kill him.

  A baton smashed my head. Hands snatched at me. Fingers grabbed my chin and hair, twisted my neck, hauled me off him. I was forced upright and pushed into Louise’s cell. Leg chains snapped my ankles and I fell. My chin cracked the floor and I bit through my bottom lip.

  Pain pinned me to the ground. Beyond me, noises simmered then came to a shouting, whistling boil. Angry voices raged at each other and called for reinforcements.

  Then silence.

  Delicious, hear-a-pin-drop silence.

  Someone had taken charge. Wiser ones had discovered Baker and Boardman had not had been given the governor’s permission for our little walkabout, and now there would be hell to pay. Old heads were fathoming out how they could exonerate themselves from this debacle and cover up everything that had just happened.

  I managed, in great pain, to roll over and rest against the wall. Opposite me was Louise’s bunk.

  The sight of it made me wonder what her last night had been like. Had she slept a wink? Prayed all night? What had been her final thoughts when they had come for her and marched her to the scaffold?

  I pressed my back hard against the wall and managed to stand up. Blood trickled down my forehead and touched my lips. I thought of Boardman’s broken teeth and spat. I straightened up and took several deep breaths to steady myself.

  Then it happened. The most unexpected thing.

  I heard a key slip into the lock of the cell door but I did not turn. A diaphanous movement across the room held my attention. A young woman in a long white dress was sat on the bunk. She clutched a blanket tightly to her bosom. I understood why she held it close. The tatter of cloth was the last softness she was afforded. The only thing that embraced her without revulsion, that brought a modicum of warmth and comfort to her skin and bones.

  ‘We’re coming in, Lynch,’ shouted a gaoler.

  ‘We don’t want any trouble,’ cried another.

  My attention stayed with the woman. Her face was white and her eyes full of tears, but she smiled at me. A smile of sympathy and understanding.

  ‘Come quietly and we won’t hurt you,’ said the turnkey. ‘There’ll be no recriminations. We only want to return you to your cell.’

  The woman dropped the blanket, rose like a balloon and vanished. There was a rush of cold wind.

  Heavy hands grabbed my shoulders and forearms. Men dragged me from her cell. Amid this mass of hot and heaving gaolers, I felt only the shuddering chill of the apparition.

  A corridor away from the women’s block, the turnkeys grew less rough and let me walk more freely between them. ‘Louise …’ I asked a young gaoler whom I had not seen before, ‘how did she behave on the gallows?’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ the man shouted in my ear.

  An older and calmer voice said, ‘She stood tall. Had her chin up. I think she had accepted who she was and had made her peace with the Lord.’

  Derbyshire, November 1885

  Cab wheels crunched gravel. In a cold, night sky the waning moon seemed to glisten with ice. We stopped in front of a gaslit front door. I glanced at Alex then hopped down from the carriage. Beside me, horses steamed from their exertion and snorted white breath into the blackness.

  Within two pounds of the brass doorknocker, a plump and surly butler opened up. Warm light and aromas of roasted meats spilled from the wainscoted space behind him.

  ‘Can I help you?’ His tone suggested I should have been at the tradesman’s entrance.

  ‘I am here for Monsieur de Breton.’ I dipped into the sack given to me and produced the bogus letter. ‘An important message for his immediate attention.’

  ‘Wait here,’ he commanded and closed the door in my face.

  Several minutes passed before the door reopened. ‘You may enter,’ announced the butler.

  Across a floor of chequered white and grey marble, I saw Sirius Gunn in a dinner suit. Alongside him was a young brunette with a hooked nose reminiscent of a vulture. Opposite was an older version of her and a white-haired, corpulent man in his sixties.

  I raised my voice and spoke to Sirius from the doorstep. ‘I have a letter from your house in London, sir. It came today via France. The messenger was too exhausted to take directions here.’

  Sirius looked to the lord in what I presume was a passable French accent. ‘Please excuse this untimely interruption; I will deal with it as quickly as possible.’

  The old man nodded and Gunn advanced. I handed him the sealed parchment; he broke the wax and opened it.

  ‘Non! Non! Non!’ he exclaimed. ‘Mon papa!’ He held the paper to his breast and seemed distraught.

  ‘What is it, Thierry?’ The young vulture flew to him.

  He passed her the letter and stayed slumped in grief.

  ‘Oh, my dear!’ she exclaimed and fluttered back to her parents. They crowded her as she translated from French:

  My precious son and heir,

  I know you are with your darling Victoria and I hate to interrupt your important visit but I am in dire need of your presence.

  It seems the illness that had been but a rattle in my chest this last year, has grown in boldness and shown itself to be a killer of tissue and choker of breath. I am to be admitted to the sanatorium as a matter of urgency and have been advised to call you to my bedside.

  I pray we are reunited one last time.

  Your loving papa,

  Bertrand de Breton

  Victoria was close to tears when she finished. Her mother gathered her close. Her father took the letter and solemnly reread it.

  Sirius gradually stirred from his shock. As though remembering his manners, he turned to the master of the house. ‘My lord, please excuse me. I need to take the messenger outside so I can compose an answer for him to rush back. Then perhaps you and I may conclude our private discussions.’ He looked pained. ‘I still have much I wish to say to you, and hopefully, with your blessing, to Lady Victoria.’

  ‘Most proper of you,’ concluded the lord. ‘But you and your man must not stand outside in the elements.’ He gestured to a passage on his left. ‘Take a moment in my study to compose both yourself and your reply. Giles will show you the way.’

  We followed the butler to a room of panelled oak and the smell of old cigars. The servant checked Lord Graftbury’s desk t
o ensure we would not have sight of any confidential papers. He removed several documents and the family seal, then commented, ‘You will find pen, ink and paper there, sir. I will wait outside until you require my services.’

  ‘Merci,’ said Sirius. He waited until Giles had left, then checked the door had been firmly closed. ‘Get your sack open. Quickly.’

  I loosened the drawstring and Sirius unfastened his jacket. From a voluminous inside pocket, he produced a small tiara that glinted brightly. I only saw it briefly, as he put it into the sack, but it was strikingly beautiful. A glorious glittering of silver, diamonds, pearls and rubies.

  ‘How much is that worth?’ I whispered as I secured the drawstring.

  ‘More than your life is, so be careful.’ He left me and hurried to the desk. There, with quill, ink and paper, he deftly fashioned a note to his dying father. When completed, he blotted the paper, nodded to me and said quietly, ‘Open the door; we are ready.’

  As Sirius had anticipated, the others had already gathered in the corridor and they witnessed him passing the note to me and the instruction, ‘Go quickly and safely, for you carry the most precious of messages.’

  ‘I shall,’ I promised and headed for the door.

  ‘Wait,’ commanded Lord Graftbury.

  I halted, mid-step.

  ‘Give your sack to Giles.’

  My heart froze.

  ‘Give it me, boy, come on.’ The butler held out his hand impatiently.

  My eyes found Sirius and I saw that he shared my nervousness.

  Giles half-turned. From a narrow hall table, he lifted a small cloth parcel. ‘Cook has wrapped some cold meat for you; let me put it in there for your long journey back.’

  ‘I have no time, sir,’ I said and dashed for the door.

  As I opened it and stepped into the night, I heard Sirius apologising for my discourtesy.

  The coach had been drawn rudely close to the house and there was no opportunity to run away, had I still harboured the notion. Indeed, it seemed to me that the coachman might well have been carrying a shotgun beneath the black cape that covered his hands and knees.

  Once inside the carriage, I exhaled an enormous sigh of relief as the horses pulled away.

  ‘Did you get it?’ asked Alexander.

  ‘In there.’ I gestured to the sack.

  He lifted it from the floor and undid the string. ‘Damnation! Where is it?’ he shook the sack. ‘It isn’t in here.’

  I grabbed it from him. He was right – there was no jewellery. I lifted out the gun. No tiara. I began to panic.

  ‘It must have fallen out. We have to stop!’ My hand frantically searched the sack for a hole that it might have slipped through. Nothing. ‘Stop, I said!’

  Alexander sat back and shook his head. ‘You have failed your first test, Simeon.’ His voice was cold with disappointment. ‘There was no theft. No royal tiara. The jewellery you saw in the house already belongs to the professor.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You have been tricked, my friend. Fooled from the moment he asked for your help until this very second.’

  Events flashed through my mind. I held open the sack. ‘But I saw Sirius place the jewellery in here.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’ He leaned forward and grabbed it from me. ‘He made an exterior fold in the cloth, like this. Sirius slid the tiara into the fold and lifted the sack as he handed it to you, so you couldn’t look inside. As you lowered it and pulled the drawstring, he palmed the tiara and returned it to his jacket. You should have checked. You really should have checked.’

  My mind filled with doubt. ‘And the revolver?’

  ‘Packed with dust, not gunpowder. Just in case you thought about using it on me and stealing the coach to make a getaway.’

  ‘I had not thought of that.’

  ‘Then be grateful for your lack of imagination. It would have been the death of you.’

  ‘And the posh nobs in the house, Lord and Lady Graftbury?’

  ‘Oh, they are genuine. But they are friends of the professor’s and like to play along with him.’

  ‘Bastards.’

  ‘He rewards them with the odd piece of stolen art and Sirius is not averse to fucking their daughter, so it works well for everyone.’

  I sank into the corner of the cab and wished I could disappear. ‘What was this all about?’ I shrugged in despair. ‘Why was I ridiculed so elaborately?’

  ‘It is not ridicule; it is the making of you. The professor wishes to test your mental faculties and your progress, that is all. He wants to see if you are ready.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For whatever he has in mind.’ He smiled in a way that intimated he could say more but chose not to.

  We settled into our seats and mulled over respective thoughts before the motions of the brougham and the darkness of night lured us into slumber.

  It was exceptionally late and dangerously icy when we arrived back at the house. I stuck close to Alexander as we headed indoors, but he insisted he didn’t need my help. I bade him good night in the main hallway and went straight to bed but could not get another wink of sleep.

  I had failed my test.

  Failed it miserably and in the morning I would have to face the wrath of the professor. The thought was too much to bear.

  After several restless hours, I got dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen. It was cloaked in darkness save the faint flicker of a fire in the range. I headed there to warm my hands and stir the embers. To one side, I saw a lamp and decided to light it and at least comfort myself with some bread and cheese.

  ‘Simeon? Is that you?’

  Surrey was sat on the floor, cowering in the corner of the room.

  ‘What is wrong? Are you all right?’

  She did not answer. From my light, I could see she was dressed as the raggedy boy I had first encountered in Manchester. The brightness of the lamp caused her to blink and shield her eyes as I approached.

  I saw other things now. A tied sack on the floor. Her hands caked in dried blood. Red-stained gloves between her legs, as though dropped there. And a knife.

  I went to the big, deep, oblong sink, put in a plug and ran water. ‘Come here – bring that blade and gloves.’

  She didn’t move.

  I returned, grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her to the sink. ‘You have to clean up.’ There were spatters of blood on her forehead and smears on her cheek, where she had wiped herself with a hand or forearm.

  Surrey stood shaking. She stared blankly at the wall while I cleaned her up as best I could. I dipped her hands in the water, mopped her face with a cloth and dried her with a towel. But I had barely scratched the surface of what was necessary. ‘Surrey, there’s blood all over your waistcoat, your shirt and pants. Even your shoes.’

  ‘I’ll change and burn them.’ These were the first words she had spoken since saying my name. ‘Change and burn,’ she repeated as though drilling herself. ‘Change and burn.’

  I went to get the hessian sack. ‘This will need dealing with as well.’

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ She looked angry. ‘Please, don’t, Simeon.’

  ‘I am trying to help you.’

  ‘I know you are. And you have. You helped a great deal.’ She put herself between me and the sack. ‘But leave me now. I am fine.’

  ‘I am not sure you are.’

  ‘Go! Please, just go.’

  I dried my hands on the towel and looked at the bloody stains. ‘Make sure you burn this as well.’ I threw it down and headed to the door.

  ‘Simeon!’

  I turned to her. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t tell the professor you saw me. Whatever you do, don’t tell him. It would not be good for either of us to speak of this.’

  Nine Days to Execution

  Newgate, 9 January 1900

  The visit to Louise Masset’s cell left a profound and painful impression on me, one far deeper than Boardman’s splintered teeth and
oafish fists had done. Her ordeal was my ordeal. I had glimpsed my own death. Felt the hangman’s clammy hand on my neck.

  I spent the next hours wondering if my imagination, perhaps even my conscience, had conjured up the chilling vision of her. Had the ghost of an executed child killer really appeared to me? Was it possible that after being hanged, your spirit stayed trapped in the place where you ended your life? Were all cells and gallows haunted by the ghosts of those who had died there?

  This was what awaited me – a form of purgatory. I would be killed and buried, but every night my restless soul would roam the death cell.

  I had to escape. Had to use that inconsequential nail to break apart every brick of my damned cell and claim my freedom. Anger boiled inside me. Anger at my helplessness and at those responsible for my imprisonment.

  My rage was curtailed by a visit from Huntley and a sandy-haired turnkey with a twitch in his left eye. ‘Routine cell search, Lynch. Stand up, place your hands on the wall – you know the drill.’

  I did indeed. Huntley patted me down while his twitching accomplice walked the slim space between bunk and window. He shook out my mattress and checked my pot before declaring, ‘All in order, sir.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it. Now wait outside, while I talk to the prisoner.’

  ‘Sir, it is protocol that there are always two of us with prisoners—’

  ‘I know the protocol; now wait outside, I said.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The twitcher left. Huntley watched the door click shut then turned to me. ‘I need to speak in privacy, Lynch.’

  I eyed him suspiciously. We had not talked since before my visit to chapel. ‘Talk away, Mr Huntley. As you can see, privacy is something I have an abundance of.’ I looked beyond him. My gaze fixed on the nail that nestled in the gap in the masonry and I wondered if he had been responsible for it coming my way.

  ‘I am part of a new breed of graduate officers,’ he said, ‘sent to old places like this to clean up the prison service. That means at times I am even less popular than you.’

  ‘Ha! People want to hang you, do they, Mr Huntley?’